Page 15 of Strictly Business

I force myself to turn to look at Wyatt and I give him a shaky smile. I don’t think I’ve done anything to get me in trouble and I have to act normal until I know what exactly he wants. He closes the gap between us before he speaks.

CHAPTER12

Serena

“What are you doing Serena?” he asks.

“I was just going to pop out and grab something to eat,” I say. “But if it’s a problem, I can wait.”

“No, it’s not a problem. I meant why are you still here at this time?” Wyatt asks.

Oh. So, I’m not in trouble then. Well, that’s something at least.

“I just wanted to get the Hislop account fixed,” I say. “But I was starving so I thought I’d go and find something to eat and then come back and finish up. I’ve got about an hour’s worth of work left to do and then it’s all fixed.”

Wyatt shakes his head and my heart sinks. I have done something wrong after all.

“No. There’s not a chance you’re coming back here tonight,” Wyatt says.

“But I need to finish my presentation and get ready for tomorrow,” I point out.

“You said you only had an hour’s worth of work to do on it, right?” Wyatt says. I nod and he smiles at me. “So, there you go. Finish it up in the morning. And in the meantime, I’m going to take you for dinner.”

“Oh no, honestly, it’s fine. I’ll grab something on the way home,” I say. “Thank you for the offer though.”

“Serena, it wasn’t a request,” Wyatt says. “I’m telling you I’m buying you dinner. Now do you need anything else, or do you have everything?”

“I have everything,” I say, deciding against arguing the point anymore. I feel like Wyatt offering to buy me dinner is his way of telling me he’s over my massive mistake and I don’t want to throw the gesture back in his face and have him be pissed off with me again. Plus, I’ll admit it. I like the idea of spending some time with Wyatt outside of the office and without my family around. I know nothing can happen between us, but it won’t hurt to get to know Wyatt a bit better, and I think it’s ok for me to look at him and want him. As long as I don’t let him know that I want him. I mean I have been doing that since my teens and nothing bad has ever come of it.

“Then let’s go,” Wyatt says.

He motions to me to walk slightly in front of him and so I do. We reach the elevators and I press the call button. We don’t have long to wait before there’s a ping sound and the doors open. I step into the elevator followed by Wyatt, and I press the button for the ground floor. He reaches for it at the same time as I do and for a second, our fingers touch and I feel my skin come alive where he is touching it. I feel him jerk away and I figure for that to be his reaction, he had to have felt that too.

I suddenly feel the air around me change and it’s so intense I can almost taste the sex in the air. I know in that moment that this attraction I feel for Wyatt is not one sided as I had always assumed it was. The elevator car reaches the ground floor, and the doors open, and I step out into the lobby. Instantly, that sexual tension I felt in the elevator is gone and as I glance at Wyatt walking along beside me, as casual as ever, I start to think that I must have imagined it all together. Did I really like Wyatt that much that I was starting to imagine a world where he felt the same way? Was I going slightly crazy? Probably not, it was probably just a harmless fantasy, but I definitely think I imagined it.

By the time we get into Wyatt’s car, and nothing feels charged or weird, I am certain that I imagined that chemistry between us, that I imagined the idea of Wyatt feeling the same as I do. I am a little bit gutted about that, but I am relieved that I didn’t do anything stupid like act on the feeling in the elevator. It was probably nothing more than a blast of static electricity as our hands touched, a perfectly normal reaction, and Wyatt ‘s pulling away was simply because he didn’t like the electric shock sensation. That definitely made a lot more sense.

“Is Italian ok with you?” Wyatt asks as he pulls out of the parking lot and joins the few cars on the road. “There’s a great little place not that far from here and I think at this time, they’ll be able to fit us in without a reservation.”

“Italian is fine,” I say. “It’s better than fine. It’s actually one of my favorites.”

“Then you’ll love this place,” Wyatt says. “It’s a little family run place, with real authentic cooking done by Rosa, one of the owners. Guiseppe, her husband and business partner, is the maitre’d and the face of the place, but Rosa’s cooking is the heart of the business.”

“It sounds great,” I say, smiling at the passion Wyatt speaks with when he talks about the restaurant. The food must be really good for him to react like that about it and I’m looking forward to eating there.

My stomach growls at the thought of the authentic Italian food on offer and Wyatt and I both laugh.

“That’s your fault,” I say, still laughing. “Talking about the place like that and reminding me of how hungry I am.”

Wyatt wasn’t exaggerating when he said the place was close by. Two or three blocks from the office, he pulls off the main street and onto a smaller side street. About halfway down it, he pulls the car in towards the sidewalk and kills the engine.

“Here we are,” he says.

We both get out of the car, and he points to the restaurant’s entry way, a black, fancy wrought iron gate is pulled shut across the deep red door. I genuinely think I would have missed it if Wyatt hadn’t known exactly where it was.

“Do we need to knock or something?” I ask.

Wyatt shakes his head.

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